The Blind Huntress
by Nate The Ape
Summary: With only her Earthbending skills, Toph is stalking game. But she's not the only hunter in the woods...  Set three years after the end of the series. Complete!
1. Chapter 1

**This two-part fic is set three years after the end of the war. While I always planned to have an update in here about what had happened to Toph and the rest of Team Avatar since then, I never expected it to become as long as it did here. I mean, this is basically a fic about The Blind Bandit hunting something down, right? But that was just the way the story wanted to go. *shrugs***

**Anyhow, here we go.**

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><p><strong>Day 14 of Magnolia Blossom Month, Kuei 22.<strong>

In the wooded hills around Gaoling, about five miles southeast of the town as the blue crow flew, a lone gharial hog boar rooted under the canopy of oaks and maples and birches. As with all hogs, his tastes in food were diverse and adventurous. Acorns, other nuts, tubers, fallen fruit, eggs, ant's nests, snakes, roots, frogs, dead animals, turtles, worms, insects, even the corpses of his own kind...all were consumed with sloppy, lip-smacking relish.

He was barrel-shaped and stocky, weighing 220 pounds, and was covered in cinnabar red bristles, caked and plastered with dried mud. He reeked of manure and fetid mud.

Still, the stench he carried about him was no barrier to his amazing sense of smell. Whenever his nose detected something interesting, he shoved his snout into the leaf litter and loam, jerking it forward and up until he found and ate yet another tasty little snack.

Every plowing movement of his long muzzle, every step he took with his stunted-looking legs, sent vibrations cascading outward through the soil.

Ask the original hunters, the ones that live in a world red in tooth and claw, that must seize and kill every time they wish to eat, how they detect prey they can't see.

They will tell you about scents on the ground and in the air, weak pulses of electricity perceived through their skin, body heat and the sensation of displaced, roiled water. They'll advise you about vibrations transmitted through the air as sound, molecules tasted with split tongues, brushing whiskers, and vibrations felt through the earth itself.

And it was this last sense, combined with a sharpened sense of hearing, which had just tipped off a 15-year old girl, blind as a cave catfish and the only Earthbender able to bend metal.

Underneath her long bangs, Toph faintly grinned in delight, excitement welling up inside her. Now this was good luck indeed!

After about an hour and a half of stealthy walking, hearing and sensing only birds, insects, and other animals too small to bother with, she'd come across a gharial hog! She liked all wild game, but as far as Toph was concerned, not even platypus bear, with its wonderfully sweet, greasy taste, could compare to the pleasures of roast gharial pig. The fact that boars also made decent trophies didn't hurt either.

She wore a tunic and pants quite similar to the one she'd traveled in during those amazing, life-changing, several months as a part of Team Avatar, but her hair was currently worn in a simple, long braid. Going out hunting in thick forest or brush with her hair up in a bun or any other complex hairstyle wasn't really a good idea, she'd quickly found out.

To protect her arms from thorns and twigs, she wore a pair of long leather gauntlets with eyelets, and used a pair of halved shoes to protect the tops of her feet. The shoes were Fire Nation.

Toph smiled lightly again. Who would've ever dreamed three years ago, that she would be a close friend of the Fire Lord himself? That his queen would actually have several pairs of shoes sent to her home as a gift?

She definitely could scarcely believe that she now had the freedom to go out and hunt potentially dangerous animals all by herself, or even leave the estate at all. Not so long ago, that would've been unimaginable. And unacceptable.

But thankfully, life-and her parents-had been a lot kinder to Toph Bei Fong since then.

After Twinkletoes had whupped Loser Lord Ozai nice and good, they'd all attended Zuko's coronation. She was happy for Sparky.

They'd all returned to Ba Sing Se afterwards, to spend one last, blissful week together as the family they'd become before separating.

Sokka and Suki, along with Ty Lee, went south, back to Kyoshi Island. Mai and Zuko of course, went back to their thrones. Aang and Katara settled down in the Air Nation, in a town about four days away by flying bison from where her awesome, sarcasm-spouting brother now lived.

Amazingly, happily, while Aang was still the last known Airbender, Twinkletoes and Sugar Queen had actually found surviving Air Nomads here and there, hiding in the recesses and crannies of the Air Nation's landscape.

Toph was delighted for him, but not really surprised. After all, no matter how hard you attempted to completely empty a jar of sugar, some always stuck to the sides.

Even better, Zuko had found his mother alive! A shackled Ozai had told his son that Ursa had fled to the Earth Kingdom, but he honestly didn't know what happened to her after that.

With only that information to go on, Zuko decided to take a gamble and ask King Bumi, Piandao, and the other members of the Order of the White Lotus if they'd heard or seen anything that might provide further clues to where the queen mother was.

Bumi had suggested that Zuko should try looking in his city, "for Omashu is known as the City of Lost and Found!"

Toph had never known Omashu to bear that particular title, but Zuko had believed it enough to decide a search would be worthwhile. And it was.

Ursa _was _there in the mountaintop city, working as the manager of a local inn and keeping her head down. She'd been shocked to see a flyer saying that the Fire Lord was looking for her. She was even more shocked and ecstatic to realize the Fire Lord was now Zuko.

It was a grand day, a grand reunion, when after more than a decade apart, mother and son saw each other again. From what Bumi had told her, there were lots of joyful tears, lots of hugs, and lots of maternal pride.

Then Ursa, no longer dressed in a commoner's rags, was introduced to Appa by her son. And Aang himself, tearing up with joy for his friend, took her home to her native land, to her palace, for the first time in years.

Toph too, knew all about reunions.

She'd stayed in Ba Sing Se for several more days with The Boulder and The Hippo. They'd shared a rented house together, earning their keep by using their Earthbending skills to help repair the damage to the city and flush out war criminals or any occupying soldiers who refused to surrender.

Every day, they'd visited Iroh and had tea with him at the Jasmine Dragon. There were plenty of shops and vendors to visit for food, and fun activities to do.

But then a message had arrived for her. In his guttural, slurred voice, the barely literate Hippo had read it for her. It was from her mother, desperately asking if she was okay, and to come home if she was.

Toph missed them terribly. She'd nearly died several times in battle during her time with the Avatar. She'd been rendered helpless by being put in a wooden cell. And each time, she would've given anything to have had her mother or father there to comfort her. Her former tournament competitors wanted to go back home too, and it wouldn't be right to hold them back.

But she also remembered how her father had coldly told her that he'd given her too much freedom. How he'd said she would now be watched by guards every hour of the day. How he'd sent those jerks Xin Fu and Master Yu to basically kidnap her, even though he probably felt it was for her own good.

She wanted to be with her parents. But she didn't trust them either. Would she be essentially returning to a cage again?

Frantic and torn, she'd gone to see Iroh, showing him the scroll and telling him about her predicament.

After reading it, Iroh had been silent and thoughtful for a while, considering.

Then he'd told her that yes, she had to return home to Gaoling-but only after her parents had made peace with her first, and with what she wanted from life.

He'd then asked if her parents liked to go on trips. She'd nodded.

Then he would send word to Lao and Poppy Bei Fong to come to Ba Sing Se, and meet their daughter at the Jasmine Dragon.

It was four day's journey by ostrich horse from Gaoling to the great city, and the Earthbender spent the time in a mixture of trepidation and excitement, continuing to have fun times with her former tournament rivals and living each day to the fullest.

Then they'd arrived.

Iroh had recently gotten himself a cat, and Toph had been sitting on the floor of the tea shop, petting its soft fur and listening to its soothing purring. Hippo and the Boulder were there too.

Then she'd detected a pair of gaits, smelt two intertwined scents, she would've recognized anywhere.

Letting the cat go, she'd stood erect, saying "Mom! Dad!"

"Oh Toph," her mother had replied in relief, as her pleased daughter had slipped into her embrace. It felt so good.

They'd been all for leaving with her at once, but Iroh had asked Lao and Poppy if they wanted to enjoy some of his choice tea before they left. It was an offer her father at least, couldn't resist.

After pouring her dad a cup of oolong, and her mother a cup of green, Iroh had joined them at the table and brought up the subject of Toph's future in his calm, wise way.

Her parents weren't totally ignorant of what their daughter had been up to after her disappearance from their home. They knew she'd played no small part in bringing the Fire Nation to its knees, and that she was now a war hero. A pragmatic man, her dad recognized that this meant trying to keep her sheltered and hidden away from the rest of the world was now a moot point. And that was a huge victory in itself.

Still, they were angry and scared to death by the knowledge that their sole child, blind and deprived of their protection, had chosen to get herself into very dangerous situations that had nearly gotten her killed. Amazingly, they also told Iroh they honestly believed Aang had kidnapped her to force her to be his Earthbending teacher, although now they weren't so sure.

Toph had nearly fallen out of her chair laughing as Iroh had laughed too, before collecting herself and telling her mom and dad that it wasn't so, that she'd deliberately run away to escape from their control, to actually enjoy and experience a real life.

Iroh had concurred, telling them that he'd encountered Toph several times while she was with the Avatar. As a former general, he was very good at recognizing the demeanor of a prisoner, the signs that someone was being held against their will, and Toph's behavior had been nothing like that at all. The Hippo and the Boulder had agreed, telling her parents that she'd been totally at ease with the others, that they were very much trusted partners and pals.

That significantly calmed them down, although her father still wasn't very happy about her cutting and running. Iroh had agreed with him that yes, it had been wrong for Toph to run away and make them worry so much.

But then he told her parents that they'd been in the wrong as well, for being so overprotective and sheltering towards their daughter, for misunderstanding and restricting her so badly that they'd left her with no other option but to be disobedient.

Her father had so not wanted to hear this, and had gotten up from his seat, intending to leave. To his chagrin though, he was greeted by a slab of stone that the Boulder had quietly earthbended to seal the door.

Reluctantly, he'd sat back down, sulky and fuming, but still with an open ear.

Then the Dragon of the West, so wise and laid-back, gave her parents The Talk.

He told them that there was nothing wrong with loving their daughter deeply and wanting to watch over her. And it was both right and natural to be concerned about the welfare of a child who had a disability.

However, love could also be like a python. If you squeezed someone too hard with your love, you constricted them, choked them, imprisoned them, made them suffer, just like the snake would.

He told them that just because someone had a disability, it didn't make them weak or helpless or fragile. Just different, that was all. Life was harder perhaps in some ways, but it generally made them all the stronger for it in the end...just like their daughter.

He told them that life was about change and balance. It was wonderful that they cared about their daughter, wanted to provide support and be there for her. But they also had to understand that there must be a balance with their daughter's desires and needs, to only give Toph support and protection when she truly needed it from them.

He also grimly added that one day, as awful as it was to think about, there would be a heartbreaking, wrenching change in Toph's life, when one or both of her parents would pass away. When that day came, would they want their daughter to be lonely, awkward, friendless, with little to no clue about how to manage her affairs, how to make it in the real world? Or would they want her to be a confident, happy, wise, well-adjusted adult with friends who would help comfort and advise her during that difficult time?

The Earthbender could feel the chilling, sobering effect his words had on her parents as they'd sat silently, looking at her, then each other, then back to her. Swallowing his pride, her dad had admitted that he much preferred the second outcome.

Hardly believing what she was sensing, Toph had realized that Iroh's wisdom was getting through to her dad. He was changing, relenting!

The former general then switched the topic to how Lao and Poppy certainly had nothing to worry about when it came to their so-called fragile daughter's ability to defend herself.

Her dad had chuffed in wry amusement, telling Iroh that he certainly didn't have to tell _them _twice, not after they'd seen her best the other two men in the shop with them and four others with the most extraordinary displays of Earthbending power he'd ever seen. Lao could hardly have been more shocked if he'd seen a tree pull itself out of the ground and start moving around on its roots.

"Still, it's always good to have additional witnesses, don't you think so?" Iroh had cheerily mentioned.

Then he'd turned towards the back of the Jasmine Dragon, and called for whoever was lurking there in the rooms behind the door to come and join them.

Then it had been Toph's turn to be shocked and apprehensive.

They'd been silently sitting on chairs or crates, cross-legged as they awaited their cue from the former general.

One by one, she'd felt their feet touch the floor. Feet encased in granite shoes.

Oh no, she'd thought as the realization hit her, her blind eyes widening.

The Earthbender jerked back her chair from the table, got out, and stood at the ready in a fighting stance as her parents, Hippo, and the Boulder all regarded her with confusion.

From the kitchen and the storerooms, four of them came, entering the main shop in a disciplined single file and wearing civilian clothes. They walked with the deliberate, businesslike, stalking fluidity of a tiger patrolling its territory.

Toph breathed in deep, channeling her energy. She could feel her parents tense up, and heard her mother gasp.

Even in Gaoling, people knew all about the Dai Li and their fearsome reputation. How they were elite Earthbenders. How they had a remorseless, take-no-prisoners attitude. How they responded to dissent and disruptive individuals. How they hushed people up. How they brainwashed people. How they would happily strike to kill.

She felt the heavy footsteps of Hippo and the Boulder as they hurried to her aid, ready to strike in tandem as she extended her left arm, snapping "You try anything, and I'll send you flying so hard through these walls-"

"Oh, don't worry yourself Miss Bei Fong," one of the Dai Li agents replied with a dismissive flick of his right hand, his voice husky and rumbling. "We're tame now."

His partner gave a barking laugh, and Iroh couldn't help but chuckle as well. Toph faintly smiled.

Then, one by one, all four agents took a seat as Iroh poured them each a cup of green tea.

She recognized each of them as an opponent she'd done battle with somewhere along the line.

And when her awed father asked them if it was true, if she, a blind, 12-year old girl, had held her own against members of the Dai Li, they'd all confirmed that she'd definitely been a match for them-even besting them!

They'd told Lao that his daughter was truly amazing, something special, a worthy opponent indeed.

Her dad had asked them, "I suppose you know why Iroh had you come to this shop to speak with me, right?"

"Yes, we do," one of the agents, Pang, said, nodding. "Believe me, if we couldn't get the better of your daughter in combat, then I can't imagine anyone or anything else who can. She can certainly defend herself just fine."

"Okay, we get the picture!" her dad had half-shouted, rocking back in his chair. "I'm willing to turn over a new leaf in how Poppy and I relate to Toph," he stated in a softer tone. "It's just hard to let go," he sighed. "Scary."

"It always is," Iroh sagely agreed.

"But I think I can make myself," Lao added as he turned towards her, and Toph's heart soared as she felt her father's sincerity.

They'd left Iroh on good terms and with many happy good-byes. And gifts too.

The blind Earthbender received a box of jasmine tea and a jade ring. Her mom got a box of ginseng, and her dad got a box of black tea. Even Hippo and the Boulder got some bull-boar jerky to share.

In a rare moment of respectful playfulness, each Dai Li agent had used one of their stone gloves to give her a firm handshake, wished her a safe journey, and then left.

This organization of secret police would become intertwined with her life again later on.

The fighters chose to go back home in a cart, while Toph of course, joined her parents in the carriage they'd traveled here in. Before the coachman had flicked the reins, Iroh had shook hands with them one last time. He'd also half-jokingly told her dad that if they ever backslid in regards to Toph's independence, he would find out, and he'd show them that he was called The Dragon of The West for a reason.

And since that day three years ago, her dad had been quite content to never discover how the general got his title.

Yes, so much had changed during that time in the blind Earthbender's life and the lives of her friends, mostly for the better, happily.

One thing that hadn't changed though was her love of fighting, of using her Earthbending and Metalbending skills in battle. Another was her fondness for meat.

Hunting was a perfect way to bring those two passions together. She loved to stalk the game, to get close and then rend a boulder into stone daggers, flinging them through the air to impale the prey with the same deadly accuracy Mai displayed with her knives. Or she would simply tear a nice mid-sized slab of rock loose with her bending, use it like a swinging board to knock the animal off its feet, and then smash it like an insect.

She was an accomplished huntress and a humane killer too. And although the idea of their blind daughter going out into the middle of the woods to chase after animals was deeply frightening to her parents-and not to mention terribly unladylike!-they certainly had no complaints about the tasty meat she brought home.

But first Toph had to get close to her quarry if she wanted to lay it at the feet of her parents. And that was the difficult bit.

She knew that even as he snorted and fed, the hog was listening all around him with hearing even sharper than hers. And his sense of smell was at least as good as a dog's.

Most of all, although he looked dumpy and slow, the gharial hog was a deceptively fast and agile runner. Very agile. If he spooked, she'd never be able to strike him in this thick woodland.

Toph paused, feeling the breeze on her forehead and scalp, gauging its direction as the leaves softly hissed. She was more or less downwind of him. Excellent.

Softly, she worked her way towards the hog. Before each step, she used the toes of her raised foot to carefully caress the spot where she intended to place it, making certain there were no twigs or sticks there. If there were, she either placed her foot somewhere else, or in a miracle of control, earthbended the loam in such a way that the stick would not crack under her weight.

Still, Toph did inevitably break a few, rustle some dead leaves. It made her heart skip a beat each time, and her body tense. The hog would tense too.

But he couldn't smell her, and there were plenty of nonthreatening creatures in the woods that made noises as they foraged and moved about. Nothing was wrong. Back to snack searching.

Then, as she carefully drew closer to the rooting, grunting gharial boar, Toph suddenly felt something through her callused soles that bothered her for a moment. It provoked the same sense of unease that had woken her, puzzled, on that terrible night when Combustion Man had first attacked their little gang.

And on top of the vibration, there was just something that darkly touched her on a purely instinctive level, a sensation which now made her freeze and listen attentively.

The Earthbender knew full well she wasn't the only hunter out here in this forest. There were platypus bears, dire wolves, boar crocodiles, and giant finback lizards, among other dangerous predators, that wouldn't hesitate to attack her if they could.

And then there were the venomous snakes. Rattle-adders, sting-fangs, sulfurheads, swamp vipers, fifty-steppers. Just like her and the badger moles, they knew all about detecting other creatures by the vibrations they made, and their scent in the air. So they generally knew Toph was coming long before she drew close, and through her feet she'd also feel them slip away into the forest, hearing the rustle of old leaves against their scales.

It was the snakes that didn't move, that were laying in ambush or dozing in a bright patch of sunlight, lying on a log or in a pile of leaves that didn't carry vibrations, which concerned Toph. She'd had close calls before.

The young huntress pursed her lips doubtfully. Just like with walking on sand, she really didn't like to wander through thick woodland if she had to. The layers of dead leaves and wet loam made it difficult to pick up vibrations clearly, and all the trees got in the way too, their roots and trunks breaking up the signals as they passed to and from her.

Worst of all, any stone she intended to use for a weapon in woodland was buried at least three feet under topsoil and pebbles. Extracting it through all that soil required several precious additional seconds-a delay which could be costly.

If you wanted some mouth-watering gharial hog chops on the table though, you had to go where the gharial hogs were and accept the risk.

The sound of the breeze in the branches and the hog's methodical rooting didn't help matters either, and Toph hoped they weren't drowning out other noises that were vital for her to detect.

But nothing seemed amiss, and she switched her full concentration back to her game.

She wanted to get herself into a position where she would have a good straight-line shot, yet also make a close approach. It would take some maneuvering to accomplish.

As yet still as unaware of the Earthbender's presence as she was of his, the horned jaguar too, slunk closer to the feeding hog, seeming to grin demonically in the dappled sunlight.

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><p><strong>Yes, things are going to get <em>very<em> interesting in the next chapter...**

**On the Chinese calendar, Magnolia Blossom month corresponds to April, while the use of Kuei's reign to measure time-more about him next chapter!- is based on the Japanese practice of naming years after the length of time the current emperor has been on the throne.**

**The species of snakes here are all my own invention, while the dire wolves and boar-crocs were actual prehistoric animals. The finback lizards are of course, modeled off of Dimetrodon.**

**Last but not least, I knew right from the beginning that Iroh was the perfect choice for an outside party that would help Toph's parents see the light, and mend the rift between them with his wisdom and calming tea. :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's the exciting conclusion everyone! Enjoy!**

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><p>Toph could not exactly be called the most patient of girls. This was one of those times though, when she just had to force herself to wait.<p>

_Slowly, Toph, slowly,_ she silently told herself, over and over again. She was breathing slowly, shallowly now as she crept towards the hog.

Now, she was about seven zhang away.

_Slowly Toph, slowly._

She could feel that the trees were now offering a good straight path for an Earthbended missile, and focused her energy down, down through the fallen leaves and soil and crushed rock, down to the bedrock itself that would make useful weapons.

There was a lot of soil, and she would need to be stealthy, yet swift about extracting a mass of stone and splintering it into daggers before the hog ran too far away from the noise. Just a couple paces closer...

And then two different things happened at once in that patch of forest.

First, Toph felt the hog stop feeding and go on the alert again. And this time she could feel that it wasn't her that the boar's attention was focused on. He was suspicious about something off to her left and in front of the Earthbender.

And once again, she felt the discomfiting vibration through her soles. Now they came in a measured series, closer and being produced by something large that walked on four legs. They were faint, the seismic equivalent of the sound of a person walking barefoot over a soft rug. But they were definitely there. And it was apparently craving gharial hog too.

_It looks like I have competition,_ Toph thought coolly. Deadly competition.

But which kind exactly?

There were only fractions of a second between the time that each of her feet picked up the weak vibrations, but the earthbender could still work out where they were coming from. She turned for better reception.

Because of the way the breeze was blowing, the hog couldn't smell this new predator. But now, as the woodsy spring air slipped in her direction, Toph suddenly caught another odor besides the gharial hog's stench.

It was the faint, but distinctive odor of a feline. Combined with the size of the creature her seismic sense was drawing a picture of, there was no doubt in Toph's startled mind about its identity now.

And her sightless eyes widened.

A horned jaguar. The demon cat.

In the halls and rooms of the Bei Fong mansion, there were a decent amount of trophies on the walls and shelves. Her paternal grandfather and great-grandfather had both been great hunters, and her own father too, hunted when he could find the time. Indeed, the floor of her parents' bedchamber was softened by a rug made from the pelt of a platypus bear Lao had killed when he was just 16.

Although she couldn't see the mounted heads, her dad had either had them taken down or had his daughter lifted up to them so she could feel of the trophies, always with an admonishment to be very careful.

They'd all been impressive underneath her hands. Some of the beasts though, were more impressive than others. She'd felt the deep skull and massive canines of a tiger, and the wickedly sharp triple sets of daggers in the scaly head of the land-running boar crocodile, over three bu in length! She'd explored the talons of a mounted crimson eagle, the two chi high dried sail and elongated but thick head of a giant finback lizard, the size of a tiger.

And then there was the mounted head of the horned jaguar, the pelt suspended beneath it.

The head was broad and deep, the muzzle protruding somewhat like a big dog's. At the front of the mouth were teeth like long, thick thorns which intermeshed like clasped fingers.

Behind them were great fangs every bit as formidable as the tiger's, backed by cusped, shearing teeth and bulging jaw muscles that were strong enough to crunch through the shell of a large turtle.

Most extraordinary of all to Toph's roaming fingers had been the foursome of impressive horns that gave the big cat its name. A pair of thick, ridged horns, conical and slightly curved, arose from the top of the feline's skull, at least a chi and a half in length from base to tip.

Two thinner ridged horns grew from the animal's temples, curving downward until they ended a little way underneath the deep, spreading jaw.

As for the pelt, it was sleek and silky to the touch, and according to her parents, had gorgeous markings...which to her of course, meant nothing. What _had_ meant something to the blind Earthbender though, was the size of the pelt, which when you added the head, came from a bulky animal one zhang in length from nose to the tip of its long, serpentine tail. And right now, what really, _really _meant something to Toph was the memory of examining the broad, spreading paws, still containing the fully exposed retractable claws, over a cun in length and knife-sharp.

This one sharing the woods with her seemed to weigh 320 jin, and was a little over a yin away, completely focused on the lone boar. Soon, the big cat would be close enough to charge.

The Earthbender hesitated, indecisive. Yeah, this made things a lot more interesting.

The last three years and her time with Team Avatar had been so liberating. Yet they'd also made her a lot more mature. No matter how good you were at bending, it was stupid to get into a life-or-death battle if you didn't have to, and especially if you were at a disadvantage.

No one would blame her if she simply did nothing right now, allowed the horned jag to rush the gharial hog and either kill it or fail to run it down, depending on how the wheel of fortune turned.

She could also simply either kill the hog herself right now like she'd intended, or let the demon cat do the work instead. Then she could drive the jag away easily enough with a mixture of shouts, earthbending, and a kick-butt attitude. That would be the safest choice.

But it also wouldn't be in Toph's nature.

She'd successfully killed crested bobcats a few times before (and they tasted great when stewed or stir-fried too!), so why not try for a horned jaguar? A wicked smile of anticipation spread over her face, and she extended her left arm. She was ready when he was.

Now the pig, and the signals, had stopped. She could still feel his heightened pulse however. Aware that there was something out there, but unsure where the threat was, he began to walk away upwind of her, occasionally rooting at the ground as he did so.

Suddenly, a coiled spring bursting into action, the horned jaguar rushed the gharial hog as he wheeled with a snort and ran-but his charge was cut short as Toph felt that sensation of _blink _in her head and in a twisting motion, made the soil collapse underneath him.

The cat gave a fearsome growl of fury and surprise as he sunk. While he was occupied with clawing his way out, Toph swiftly bent two slabs of bedrock up through the topsoil, intending to kill the big cat by dropping first one, then another, on his torso.

But the jag was strong and fast, and he freed himself before she could even bring the slabs of rock crashing down.

Not understanding what was going on or where the true threat was, the horned jaguar began to run blindly. Toph threw up a curved barrier of limestone in front of him. The big cat swerved, and ran in another direction. She broke the top of the small wall into daggers, and flung them at the jag's broad back with a sideways sweep of her arms. But they all either missed completely or hit trees instead.

She stomped her foot, intending to bend the soil so hard it would send him flying up into the air, where hopefully he'd hit a big bough and come down crippled. A large maple tree got in the way at that moment though, and to her frustration, most of her bending energy was absorbed by the trunk and roots instead. The demon cat simply stumbled on the remainder with a growl, righted himself like the athlete he was, and swerved again as he ran on.

Toph pulled another thick crescent of bedrock out of the soil to block the horned jaguar's path. He swerved again. This time, the chances were good that if she made the stone into flying daggers, at least a few of them would hit the cat.

But by sheer bad luck, this barrier was mostly facing her. To earthbend spikes of rock from it and then send a bunch flying in her general direction would be suicidal.

Switching tactics, she decided to see if she couldn't blind the cat for a little while by flinging a nice big bunch of topsoil into his face. Angling her body towards another space between the trees, she did just that, making the jaguar snarl in surprise and agony as he clawed at his face.

But before Toph could even think of pressing the advantage home, he'd recovered and was running in frightened confusion again. It was frustrating!

She tried to fling him high up into the air again, but he simply used the mound like a springboard, and leapt off.

With the solid earth betraying him at every turn, the horned jaguar did the sensible thing and followed the example of his smaller crested bobcat cousins. The earthbender heard the hurried rustling of leaves and felt the impact of the padded paws suddenly stop as the cat came to a stop under a great oak tree.

She tried to earthbend the dirt out from under him, but he'd already leapt, and her ears plainly heard the way his claws grated against the bark as the stocky cat hoisted himself into the oak's crown, taking up position on a bough two and a half zhang above the forest floor.

_The Earth Goddess damn it! _Toph silently growled in frustration. Now she would have to flush him out of the tree, at close range. She'd had to do this twice with crested bobcats, and that had _not_ been fun.

Up in a tree, insulated by wood, she had no idea exactly where the animal was, what its intentions were, what posture it was in, which way it intended to flee if it left its refuge.

And if she flung some sharp rocks at it, Toph truly would be firing blindly. She couldn't feel the projectiles in the air anyhow, and would only be able to know by sound if they hit anything so removed from rock and earth. Most likely it would be a branch, not flesh.

Sighing and inhaling deeply, she paced over to the tree, confident, yet cautious. She could feel the horned jag's eyes on her as she approached, and knew that he saw her, was watching her. It plucked at her nerves, to say the very least.

Extending her arms, she began to pull the fractured stone underneath the topsoil to the surface. Her intent was to pelt the cat perched above her with a fusillade of rocks, sting his hide and make him either fall or leap from the tree to escape the pain.

And then, she heard a scrape of claws on bark, and the demon cat gave a slow, tearing snarl. Turning, he actually moved closer to the middle of the tree's crown, placing as many branches as he could between them.

It was then Toph realized. This horned jag had been hunted before. Hunted by Earthbenders! He _knew_ she was an enemy, and that she intended to use the pelt-you-with-sharp-stones trick to make him vacate this tree.

At first, the blind earthbender was uncertain. Maybe she should just leave well enough alone. A story about singlehandedly treeing a horned jag would be impressive enough in itself without dragging the cat home as well.

But she was this far along already.

Steeling herself, Toph bent herself a dagger of stone out of the ground, and then pulled a pillar of stone, thick as a man's leg and with a jagged point, out of the bedrock at what she thought was a suitable angle, keeping it just underneath the leaf litter.

And then she did what every proper warrior does before doing battle.

Raising her stone dagger in her right hand, Toph spread her feet apart, adopting the same posture she'd felt Snoozles take before engaging an enemy so many times before. Like a mountain peak confidently meets and absorbs the crackling fury of a lightning bolt, the earthbender prepared to meet the demon cat's explosive savagery. She tilted her head back to the spring sky and inhaled deeply.

Then she yelled.

It was a defiant sound that knifed through the gaps in the trees, rang out over the forested hills, and made the air itself tremble. It was a feminine, yet steely cry, the shriek of a war goddess. Of a master huntress.

Ready for whatever might come, Toph Bei Fong voiced her challenge to the demon cat. And he knew what she was saying.

From above her, Toph heard the scrape of claws on bark as he got up and walked out onto a limb. He gave a deep growl and a single low cough as Toph sensed him crouch. She knew what was coming.

"Come and get me kitty," she coolly taunted, baring her teeth in a leer.

With a spine-chilling, snarling roar, he sprang at her, twigs rasping and cracking against his horns.

She knew better than to wait, and met his leap in the air with the pillar of stone.

She'd hoped to impale him with the sharp end if she could. But the angle was off, and the demon cat was too agile. Still, he was bowled over and over by the impact, crashing into a bush.

He came at her like a flash, vegetation hissing against his hulking body.

Immediately, Toph made that _blink_ sensation go off in her brain, and _pulled_ upward as a wide pillar of stone about a bu wide erupted underneath her feet, shedding leaves and soil as it did so. Her objective was not only to get out of the cat's way, but to get above him and hurl the stone dagger down into his torso. It was a risky move in mature forest like this though.

And a bu and two chi above the forest floor, Toph suddenly felt the unexpected and agonizing _crack_ of a tree limb against her skull.

With a groaning howl of agony, she dropped to her knees in pain on the pillar, clutching her throbbing head and rendered half-stunned. _No, no, no!_ Not now!

The dagger of stone she'd bent had dropped to the forest floor. And now she heard the horrifying sound of the horned jaguar's claws as he climbed up the pillar. He was already almost on her!

Desperately, she fought past the pain and tore a chunk of stone three times the size of her fist from the top of the pillar, smashing the demon cat right in the face as he began to pull himself up over the edge.

He gave a furious snarl and let go, dropping to the ground.

Toph heard him growl, and the sound of his sweeping tail lashing the vegetation as he crouched beneath the pillar, preparing to charge up at her again.

With a loud crack, she pulled another spike of stone from the pillar and sent it flying down at him. There was a snarl of shock and pain, and she knew she'd struck true.

Roaring in fury, the demon cat charged up at her with a new determination. He was so fast!

Wildly, Toph smashed him in the face again with a bent rock.

It knocked him off balance-but then to her horror, Toph suddenly felt a broad forepaw wrap around her ankle and tug. Massive claws began to bite her skin like needle flies, and they both crashed to the ground together just two chi apart.

Terrified, the earthbender tore a vertical slab of rock from the pillar about as thick as her wrist, and hurled it into the big cat as he began to embrace her with his fearful forelegs, knocking him off balance.

But he was still way too close-close enough to smell the garbage reek of his breath!

She earthbent at least two jin of soil into his face with everything she had, and used the distraction to pull broken stone from both the pillar and under the dirt, forming it into crude armor. And just in time too.

The demon cat leapt for Toph once more, and she instinctively stumbled backward, holding her stone-mailed arm lengthwise out in front of her.

There was a sudden, terrible grinding pressure on the blind earthbender's right arm, and she cried out in both horror and pain at the crushing sensation, knowing the great cat was actually biting down on her. With the protection provided by the shattered stone and the leather gauntlets, there was no way that the horned jag's fangs or claws could pierce her skin and draw blood. But the sheer crushing force still hurt.

Spirits, did it hurt!

Frantically, Toph earthbent her legs into the soil up to her knees, and desperately strained backward against the big cat's terrible power. If she fell, the impact would break her concentration and knock the stone off, leaving her naked before the demon cat. And she'd never get up again.

How _stupid_ could she have been, even with her mastery of Earthbending, to try to tangle with this beast? With despair, she thought of her mother, her father, her friends. She was going to die.

There was an eerie silence all about the two of them, as if the very forest itself was waiting, with baited breath, to see who would win this dreadful tug-of-war. And Toph was rapidly losing.

Despite the fact that the badger-moles she shared such a profound kinship with had been her true, best teachers, Master Yu, that pathetic mockery of an Earthbending instructor, had still been good for advice if nothing else.

And now, as the demon cat's power steadily, inorexably pulled her downward, a piece of it suddenly rang through her panicked mind like the sound of a gong being struck.

_Successfully defeating an opponent by Earthbending isn't simply a matter of how skilled you are, or how big a stone you throw, or the size of your muscles. It also depends on doing the unexpected. Leap when they expect you to stomp! _Another saying followed on its heels. _Despair is the strangler of action!_

In a flash, Toph stopped resisting, and _shoved_ the cat instead, knocking him backward.

The grinding pressure on her arm weakened for a few moments, and she took that precious opportunity to do something Toph couldn't remember having ever needed to do during a hunt or battle.

With a fist mailed in limestone, she punched him as hard as she could, right in the throat.

The demon cat dropped back with a choking yowl, and Toph instantly bent the soil out from below his hind legs with all she was worth, solidifying and encasing the entire rear half of his body in the dirt. Then, as he wheezed and struggled to get free, the blind earthbender about-faced and ran. She wasn't retreating, but retracting, like a bowstring being pulled back to accept and notch another arrow before firing.

When she'd covered twenty chi, she felt and heard the wounded demon cat pull himself from the dirt and rush at her. Whipping around, she cracked a large boulder just a few inches underneath the surface, extracting a crude, yet effective, stone ax with all the precision of a sculptor.

As the horned jaguar charged her, she tilted the sharp edge to face his beefy chest, and sent it whizzing through the air. There was a ragged chopping sound, an agonized roar, and she felt the cat stumble heavily. She'd got him good this time!

But the big cat still had plenty of fight left in him, and clumsily leapt back to his feet, snarling like a demon. Toph hit him with a wave of soil, knocking him onto his left side, his legs facing away from her.

Instantly, as the cat tried to get to his feet, she cracked a second sharp wedge from the boulder and flung it at him, low to the ground.

She heard it slash through a bush, crack a sapling in two, then the awful, sickening sound of the sharp edge going through skin and flesh as it buried itself deep into the horned jaguar's wide lower back.

The great cat gave a snarling roar of agony and hatred that seemed to tear the air apart, and he yanked himself to his feet, ready to come at her like a bolt of lightning.

And then, suddenly, his hindquarters went slack, drooping to the leaves. She'd damaged his spine, and excitement at getting the upper hand at last flooded through her body in a jubilant rush. Now to finish the job.

Shredding the air with snarls of defiant hatred, the horned jaguar very shakily got into a half-crouched posture. His hind legs still worked, but they had now been rendered ineffectual by the chop of the stone blade.

Toph backed away to afford herself more room, smelling the copper reek of the big cat's flowing blood. Breaking a stone dagger out from the bedrock, she flung it though the spring air, right at the now-vulnerable animal's chest.

Once more, there was the sound of slicing flesh and gristle to tell her she'd struck true. Again the horned jaguar cried out in a feral bass yowl. This time though, it was with a sudden staccato burbling, and the blind huntress realized she'd pierced a lung.

He staggered, and snarled in rage again. Now her ears picked up a sudden weird, hushed sound of something falling, like a light rain. But as far as she could tell, the sky was clear. What was going on?

Then the nauseating realization came to her, making her insides twist. She was hearing the blood from the cat's punctured lung as it burst from his mouth and rattled on the leaves.

Her quarry roared again, and the ugly sound of the falling blood accompanied it as he gave a heavy lurch forward. Defiant to the end, he was dying on his feet from her blows, but still refused to go down. And oh, how Toph respected him for that. She would give him a warrior's death.

She tore another stone dagger loose, angled it downward, and let it fly. She heard and felt it go into the hollow at the base of the horned jaguar's neck, down into his chest, and the cat went down.

Even as he fell, he used his crippled hind legs to shove himself forward, and Toph heard his claws tear at the leaves and dirt in front of him as far as he could reach. Even with his last breath, he was still trying to reach her, refusing to surrender.

He snarled one last time. Then he gave a low, accepting, almost lamenting moan that turned Toph's stomach and made her sightless eyes tear. And then the horned jaguar went limp forever.

Only when Toph couldn't feel his pulse through the soil any longer did she carefully walk up to the magnificent cat.

She wiped the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her tunic as she caught her breath, panting heavily. She could smell the sharp metallic scent of his blood, the rotten meat stench from his mouth.

The blind young huntress stood silently for a time, her face tilted down towards the dead jag as she just let everything sink in, listening to the leaves in the trees, the birds and insects.

She had done it, and could hardly believe it to be so. She'd taken on a huge, agile, dangerous predator with excellent sight and reflexes in thick forest, with mature trees and saplings in the way, up close and personal, and most stone harder to get to-and killed it!

Grinning smugly in triumph, Toph knelt, feeling the long quills that ran down the nape of the cat's thick neck and covered its huge shoulders.

Then she vaulted to her feet and pumped her right fist in the air, laughing crazily as excitement and pride overwhelmed her, drunk on the thrill of victory.

"Hah Hah! Yes! I did it! I **did it! **_**I killed a horned jaguar!**_" For no particular reason, she began to gleefully dance around her kill, deliberately making the earth quiver with her stomps as she pointed at the jag and hooted, "Yeah, that's right buddy! You just got killed by a blind girl and some rocks! Ultimate humiliation time!"

She stopped and raised her fist into the air again in pure glee, whooping, "Yeah, who's the best? Who's the queen? Who's the ultimate huntress!" as she jumped for joy. "Platypus bears and crested bobcats are child's play compared to pulling this off!"

Calming down, but still throbbing with the thrill of victory, she bent once more to feel the cat's horns and blocky face. Grabbing the top horns, she tugged at them, testing the weight.

She could gut the cat easily enough, but she couldn't possibly drag it back home all by herself. Toph would need help.

And thankfully, someone who could do the heavy lifting wasn't all that far away.

Inside the sash she wore around her tunic was a special stone whistle. When you blew into it a certain way, it made a sound like a blue crow cawing. It sounded similar enough to the real thing that other animals weren't disturbed by it, but different enough so that her friend and hunting partner would recognize it for what it was.

Raising it to her mouth and putting the narrow end to her lips, Toph produced a sharp, grunting blow. Then again. It burst into the hot forest air, exploded up through the trees, and carried over the wooded hills.

The message was simple. _I've just killed. Come get me if and when you can. I'm ready when you are._

If her partner had yet to take prey himself, there would be just a single reply to let her know he couldn't come yet and she must wait. Her friend was pretty good at Earthbending himself though, and could see too, so the chances were good that he'd also bagged something by now.

_But nothing as awesome as this! _She grinned in wild glee. She could hardly wait for him to see it!

And then, from the place where they'd split up to hunt alone, Toph heard one, then two, then three imitations of a blue crow from his own whistle.

_I've killed too. I'm coming._

She sat down and waited patiently, rubbing and massaging her throbbing right forearm in the meantime. Her bones had felt like they were going to snap from the force of the demon cat's crushing bite. She was going to get one doozy of a bruise out of this, that was for sure.

She could also feel the bleeding scratches curling around her ankle, and found it both chilling and marvelous that he'd actually managed to score a hit. Thankfully however, they were only skin deep, and she could easily either hide them under a gown or pass them off as thorn scratches to her parents.

Then she heard the noise of two large animals galloping though the forest, one leading the other, and her heart leapt in excitement. She could tell that the one in front had a rider, and she stood to greet him, taking a position just behind the cat's body and baring her teeth in a self-satisfied grin as a way of telling her boyfriend, _Bet you didn't think I had it in me to take down something like this, did you?_

"Hey there Toph! What'd you-"

Then, even though he was on morse back, Toph felt him tense in amazement as he gave a sharp, disbelieving gasp.

"Great Tu Gong!" he exclaimed breathily, and Toph knew his jaw was hanging open. She smugly giggled. "You...you killed a horned jaguar! And out in forest no less! Wow. You're practically one of Fuxi's daughters Toph!" he told her in stunned awe.

That was a huge compliment, and it cheered her immensely.

"Nah, I'm just awesome instead, and that's all there is to it," she replied, grinning as she dusted off her hands and placed them on her hips.

"That's for sure," her stunned companion said. "That's the biggest horned jag I've ever seen!"

Toph was more than happy to soak up the awe and praise as she felt the impact from her friend dismounting the morse. She could feel his heightened pulse and loose muscles, and picture his goggling eyes as he awkwardly strode up to the cat and knelt to stroke it.

"Wow," he said again. Examining the wounds and scanning the area, he commented, impressed, "Looks like you two really went at it before you made him eat stone. And a lot of it," he added.

"Hah, that's for sure. He even actually came close to getting me twice, but I kicked his furry butt in the end," she gloated, rubbing her compressed arm.

"Well, I definitely heard the commotion from it, believe me. Seriously, it sounded like when Aang released all the animals from the Ba Sing Se Zoo and moved them through the streets to the Outer Ring!"

"Were you worried about me at all?" Toph asked mildly.

"Yes, I was," he replied. "But I also knew that you're an amazing earthbender, and that you can handle yourself just fine in a fight. Besides, you didn't call for my help."

The remark warmed her heart so much. And not for the first time, she was grateful to have found a man who understood her so well.

The aftermath of Ozai's defeat had showered Toph with nearly everything she could've asked for. Freedom to do as she liked. Fame and prestige. Respect. Loyal, loving friends.

But there'd been an awful, wrenching gap. She was the only member of Team Avatar who'd ended up without someone to love and share her life with. It wasn't fair, and it hurt. She'd had a crush on a certain Water Tribe Warrior, but it wasn't to be.

While Suki had captured Sokka's heart though, Flame Boy had the Stone Queen, and Twinkletoes had Miss Sweetness for his one true love instead of her, Toph hadn't gone without romance for long after the war had ended. For one thing, being a famous war heroine, one of the Avatar's close friends and teachers, and the heiress to the Bei Fong fortune suddenly made her more than a little desirable as a girlfriend.

Amazingly, instead of finding all the male attention to be a concern, her parents were enthusiastic about the idea. Toph suspected they found the idea of a handsome, big, strong suitor who would fill the role of "protecting" their disabled, vulnerable daughter after their deaths highly appealing and reassuring. Any grandsons that the relationship might result in certainly wouldn't be unwelcome either.

Could a blind woman manage to take care of a child? She wasn't all that optimistic.

Of what must've been dozens of potential boyfriends who came to the doors of the estate, Toph had rejected the great majority, not hesitating to use her Earthbending skills to get the point across and calling them losers. Some were decent and interesting enough that she'd developed a bond of friendship with them, but nothing further than that.

There was one guy who Toph _had _found herself developing a real fondness for though, especially over the past few months. Three years older than she was, he was a fellow Earthbender named Kun Yong, and he hailed from Ba Sing Se.

Kun wasn't a duplicate of Sokka, and certainly not a replacement-no one could possibly be-but his nature and temperament resembled the Water Tribe youth's in lots of ways. He had the same wonderfully dry wit, calculating mind, love of meat, measured pessimism, creativity, displayed something of a skeptical disdain towards the esoteric, and laid-back attitude.

And for better or worse, when push came to shove, he also had Sokka's killer instinct.

In some other ways though, Kun was also a bit like Aang. He had his playful, spontaneous moments, and even at the age of 18, often displayed a sense of wonder and marvel towards new things that Toph couldn't help but find charming.

She also liked the Earthbender teen due to an irony she couldn't help but find amusing.

Kun had technically once been one of her enemies, although he couldn't have known it at the time. Three years ago, he'd been undergoing advanced training to become a Dai Li agent when the city had fallen to the Fire Nation. He'd already had matching sets of custom fitted black granite gloves and shoes, and wore his hair in the same long braid.

A month after the final battle marking the end of a century of aggression by the Fire Nation, King Kuei had wandered back and then reclaimed his place on the throne. His time as a wander had been every bit a trial by fire as it had been a footloose lark. It had shaped him up, changing the monarch into a world-tested, wiser, and sterner man, to say nothing of a more accomplished Earthbender in his own right.

One of his first acts had been to forcibly break up the Dai Li as a formal police force, including the training facilities. With their future uncertain, many of these chastened former agents had taken the logical step of joining the Earth Kingdom army, where they could continue to put their impressive Earthbending skills and strategic capabilities to good use. Some were assimilated into Ba Sing Se's new, less draconian police force. Some became rouges who lived a life of crime.

Others like Kun had left Ba Sing Se entirely, looking for jobs as guards, policemen, watchmen, or even Earthbending teachers in various Earth Kingdom communities. With just his ostrich horse for a companion, Kun Yong had made his way to the neighboring small hilltop town of Guan, where he'd found a job as one of the mayor's guards.

While Toph referred to him as Granite Feet, Kun soon gained the appropriate title of Wahng Shi Bing among his comrades and others who knew him well. The lame guard.

That disability, and the way in which he viewed it, was what perhaps endeared him to Toph most of all.

During that desperate, terminal battle, with the sky glowing blood-red under the comet, Kun Yong had decided he'd put up with enough from the Fire Nation. Even though he knew the power they were tapping into from the comet made them ten times more dangerous than usual, he'd chosen to go after a group of five Firebender soldiers by himself.

Using his advanced Earthbending skills to throw up protective shields of rock and launch himself out of harm's way, he'd used his stone shoes to scramble over the walls like a spider, working the firebenders over with everything he'd had, showing them he hadn't been picked to become one of the Dai Li for nothing. He'd told Toph he knew for a fact that he'd broken one soldier's nose, and badly hurt two others during the skirmish.

But Kun Yong had been up against five older, charged-up soldiers, and wasn't nearly as in tune with the earth as Toph was. Inevitably, one of the firebenders had caught him squarely in the back of his right thigh and knee, literally roasting the muscles and tendons.

Collapsing seven feet to the street and crying out in agony, Kun had had the presence of mind to throw up a shallow stone tent over himself before the firebenders could finish him off. While the soldiers probably could've broken down his rock shelter with their enhanced powers, they'd decided tending to their injured was more important, and had gone away, leaving him crippled for life.

With her sensitive hands, Toph had felt the puckered, sunken depression that extended from mid-thigh to the very top of his calf several times. And even if keeping silent and downwind of her, she could still easily recognize Granite Feet immediately by his swaying, stiff-legged, lopsided gait.

But although he was now forever lamed, he didn't let that stop him or allow it to define who he was any more than she let her blindness restrict her. And oh, how she adored him for that attitude!

More than anything, it was that confidence, that overcoming of a physical handicap, and the courageous manner in which he'd received it that endeared the would-be Dai Li to Toph, made her feel like he complimented and matched her.

Recently, she'd begun to talk to him about her future dreams of becoming an Earthbending instructor, heading her very own academy. Kun had been very enthusiastic about the idea, and had volunteered that with his experience as a Dai Li trainee, he'd make a good Earthbender teacher too, and would love to work alongside her.

She'd lightly punched him in the shoulder then, suspiciously drawling, "Did you just give a subtle hint that you'd like to marry me someday Granite Feet, or am I just mistaken?"

"Perhaps you are. Then again, perhaps you aren't," he'd replied impishly as he'd then clasped her hand, causing her to blush.

Now she blushed again as he told her, feeling the curving horns, "You are one amazing huntress Toph. What a magnificent jag. Your jag," he said in admiration.

"What did you get Granite Feet?" she asked, partly in interest, partly to change the topic.

"Got a musk deer," he replied from underneath the conical hat she knew he was wearing, the one that was part of an agent's uniform but now simply served functional purposes. "It's a buck with nice tusks."

And indeed, Toph could smell the mixed perfumes of blood and the heavy, aromatic scent that gave the creature its name from a place in front of where Kun had been seated on his morse, Gao. Behind them stood her own morse, Bai, who as a herding animal had followed Gao without being commanded.

"That's good," she replied. "I'm sure it'll taste great pot-roasted. I don't know about horned jaguar though," she said doubtfully, turning her attention back to the slain cat. "I mean, I've eaten crested bobcat and wildcat before of course, and they're pretty good, but I have no idea if demon cat would taste any good or not."

"Well I've had it before a few times," Kun replied, "and it actually tastes pretty delicious. It's like lean ham almost, at least to me," he informed her.

"Where did _you_ get to eat horned jaguar?" Toph asked quizzically.

"At feasts Long Feng would hold for us now and again. As his enforcers, we Dai Li got the best of everything-even if you were up-and-coming," he laughed. "Anyway, it's good eating."

"Well, then I'll bend out a wedge of shale and open up the belly so you can do the finer work with your own knife Granite Feet. Remember to keep the heart and liver though!"

"Yeah," he agreed. "Not only are those parts good eating, but can you imagine the fit Sokka would throw if he found out?"

Mimicking the Water Tribe Warrior's voice, Toph laughed, saying, "You threw away the heart? That's warrior food!"

Kun laughed with her, before saying, "Say, I don't know about you Toph, but I'm already feeling pretty filthy. You want to wash up with me in the river after we get this kitty up on Bai? We won't go near any deep places," he added.

Rather unusually for an Earthbender, and an elite one at that, Granite Feet enjoyed the water. He loved swimming and wading, telling Toph that he liked the feeling of weightlessness and that the water was good for his crippled, fire-scarred leg.

Kun was very confident in the water too. Once he'd bragged to her that he could swim for half a mile in a suit of Earth Kingdom armor. When she'd replied, "Yeah, and I can fly like a bird too, Granite Feet," Kun had actually called her bluff the next day.

To her shock and anxiety, he'd donned his stone gloves and shoes and a throat-to-shin suit of armor before swimming a hundred yards out into Rabbit Lake, and then swum parallel to the shore for about half a mile as she kept pace.

Then he'd breast-stroked back to her, noticeably worn out but also very pleased with himself.

Toph of course, couldn't swim a stroke. Nor could she feel any vibrations through water.

But still, Kun had coaxed her into wading around and playing with him in this new element, as long as it was no higher than her collarbone-and enjoying herself doing it! Sometimes, in a supreme display of trust, Toph would even hold on to his toned chest and allow him to backstroke out into water over their depth for a few minutes. The danger she flirted with by doing this gave her a pleasant little thrill.

The idea sounded good, and she said "I'd like that."

Then as Kun casually pulled his knife out of its hip sheath, the blind huntress turned away and took a step, feeling the seismic echoes for the signature of shale, which broke to form such a superb cutting edge. She detected some, and the familiar sensation of _blink_ flashed through her brain as she cracked it.

She could hardly wait to hear and feel her dad's reaction when she hauled _this_ home!

* * *

><p><strong>For those who don't know Chinese measurements, one zhang is 11 feet. One yin is 109.4 feet. One large li is 1640.4 feet. One bu is 5.5 feet, also known as a Chinese pace. One chi is 13 inches, also known as a Chinese foot. One cun is 3.3 centimeters. 350 pounds=320 jin. A jin is half a kilogram or 1.1 pounds.<strong>

**The musk deer is a real animal, and is hunted in China for both its meat and the buck's musk, which is traditionally used as both a base for perfumes and a cure for things like fever, sore throats, and arthritis.**

**The wildcats too, are real animals. As some may know, like it or not, the Chinese do eat the flesh of cats. :( Therefore, I thought it would be logical for Toph to have consumed the meat of their wild ancestors somewhere along the line.**

**The horned jaguar is my own creation. While its markings, habits, and physique are obviously based off of a true jaguar, the horns were inspired by those of churro, or four-horned sheep. I also added some of the facial features of a Rotweiler dog, while the furred tail is a combo of monitor lizard and sauropod tails. The quills are taken from a crested porcupine, while the spiky incisors come from a plesaiosaur.**

**In my mind's eye, crested bobcats are like true bobcats, except they have a mohawk of stiff hair running down their spine, and a skin-covered half circle of bone between their ears. Their upper fangs also visibly protrude past the gum line.**

**Morse are rufous-coated animals that resemble a cross between a cow moose and a horse. They are about the size of a draft horse and serve a similar function in Earth Kingdom society.**

**Tu Gong is the name of the Chinese earth god, while Fuxi is the god who first taught men how to hunt.**

**Finally, Guan means "crowned," while Kun Yong's name means "brave earth." Whew! Now kindly read and review if you please!**


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